29 October, 2001: The Baron in the Trees
I don't know what it is about Italo Calvino, but I've never read one of his books that hasn't just plain made me happy. The Baron in the Trees is a romp -- an Italian nobleman in the late eighteenth century takes to the trees as a boy (in a fit of pique, and to avoid being punished for not finishing his dinner) and simply never comes down, while the events of the century swirl around him. He becomes a freethinker, corresponds with Rosseau, meets Napoleon, joins the Freemasons, fights with Jesuits (who were, at the time, suppressed by papal decree), finds then loses (then finds again, then loses again) love, all without ever descending to the ground. Invisible Cities and If on a winter's night a traveler were experiments in storytelling in which Calvino avoided simply telling a story. The Baron in the Trees isn't an experiment or a meditation on the nature of storytelling. It's just a delightful, happy-making bonbon of a story.